Servers

IBM and HP continue their duel to be the favored enterprise server provider, but there are many other players - including Dell, Oracle, and Cisco. Meanwhile, public clouds and virtualization should keep the server market interesting.

Intel's annual meeting with analysts this week didn’t answer all of my questions--detailed product roadmaps seem to be a thing of the past for chipmakers. But we did learn a lot about where Intel is headed.

The rapid growth of cloud services like AWS will have a big impact on hardware, in particular on servers and other gear in data centers, but also on how we use PCs and mobile devices. Here are my takeaways from re:Invent.

The Dell PowerEdge R815's core density is impressive, setting it up neatly for virtualisation duties. Using AMD's 6000 series processors, it hits 48 cores across only four sockets, all in a 2U chassis.

For the past few months, Microsoft has been touting the same handful of new Windows Server 2008 R2 features: DirectAccess, BranchCache and live migration with Hyper-V. But there are more than 100 new features in this 'minor' update to Windows Server. Here are 10 that IT pros might not know about -- but should.

Software vendor CA plans to move its Melbourne-based antivirus labs to a new facility after exhausting the space and energy resources at its current location -- by consuming as much power as an average metal-welding factory.CA's antivirus lab currently looks, in the words of the company's vice president, development, Eugene Dozortsev, like a "scene from Space Odyssey 2001".

John Fowler, Sun's executive vice president of systems, discusses the energy efficiency of its new blade servers. CEO Jonathan Schwartz says plastic is no longer used in the blades and frames. Both spoke at a Sun presentation Wednesday in Washington, D.C.

John Fowler, Sun's executive vice president of systems, made his case that the new generation of Sun blade servers can now truly outdo rack servers. He made his pitch Wednesday to analysts and reporters in Washington, D.C.

At a press event in San Francisco May 17, Dell CTO Kevin Kettler and Jay Parker, head of the company's server business, showed recent and upcoming technologies that they hope will beat out competitors in the business computing market. Among the offerings was a cooling system for PCs and a new product called Project Hybrid.

David Berlind, executive editor at ZDNet, discusses the cost benefits of outsourcing servers to Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), a pay-as-you-go service that allows you to control servers virtually through APIs.

This is a well built and very capable 2U rack server from a respected vendor that can be configured to suit a wide variety of applications. It's particularly strong on disk capacity and PCIe expansion.

The RS700-E6/RS4 1RU bare-bones server, features dual-socket Xeon 5500 series support and 12 DDR3 1066/1333 sockets for a maximum 96GB RAM. You'll need to bring your own components to fit these though, depending on your needs.

For raw power Sun Microsystem's Sun Fire X4450 is the gutsiest server we've seen, and at 2RU it's compact considering its specs. However, priced at over AU$27,000, this machine will make a dent in your budget.

The ftServer 6200 VMware bundle makes an excellent platform for hosting virtual machines. As VMware servers cannot be clustered, the Stratus offering is about the only option for organisations requiring extreme high availability from their ESX Server environments.

The Raritan Dominion PX keeps track of power consumption, and records temperature and humidity data from sensors placed amongst your servers. When combined with an un-interruptible power supply, we think it will keep your servers safe and happy.